Potter in the Lakes

On eve of a groundbreaking Beatrix Potter retrospective, here’s how to follow in the writer’s enchanting footsteps

When Beatrix Potter wrote to the four-year-old son of her old governess, she drew a rabbit on the page. It was just a doodle. The child had been ill and needed cheering up. She could not know that this sketch in 1893 would change her own life for ever.

That bunny would become known around the world as Peter Rabbit, bringing its creator fame and fortune.

With the proceeds of her nursery tales, Potter bought up thousands of acres of the Lake District and, on her death in 1943, left it all to the national Trust. That legacy is the subject of an exhibition, Beatrix Potter: Drawn To nature, which will open on February 12 at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. Don’t expect cute bunnies and talking squirrels: someone’s been digging in the archive.

With rare photographs and early botanic drawings on display, the show promises to be a ‘revelation’, says helen Antrobus of the national Trust (NT) and co-curator of the exhibition. ‘We will highlight all her talents. She was not only a gifted artist but also a keen natural scientist and pioneer of conservation.’

Keen to learn more, I headed north to near Sawrey, the Cumbrian village high above Lake Windermere, where Potter bought her first farm, hill Top. And I discovered that her own story is just as absorbing as the animal adventures she penned.

her journey from early life in Kensington, West London, to latter years in Cumbria brought joy and tragedy. Born in 1866 to

wealthy p arents, P otter w ould a ccompany them every summer holiday to the Lake District. T here, s he r oamed t he c ountryside sketching and daydreaming. A frog?

Jeremy Fisher. A rat? Samuel Whiskers. No w onder she described herself as a ‘town mouse who longed to be a c ountry m ouse’.

For a long weekend I was that country mouse,checkingintoSawreyHouse,ahotel next door to the farmhouse at Hill Top, now run by the NT. Potter left strict instructions for the display of her personal belongings: her doll’s house, Peter Rabbit figurines, her best china on the table. Perhaps she guessed that this would become a place of pilgrimage after her death.

The weather didn’t look propitious: the skies w ere l eaden a nd t he s ummits l ooked m urderous. Yet I awoke the next morning to a vision of brightest white: snow- dusted hills and frosted stone walls. Beyond lay Esthwaite Water, a view that enchanted Potter. ‘It really strikes me that some scenery is almost theatrical or ultraromantic,’ she wrote.

Each day followed a perfect pattern: a leisurely breakfast, the piling on of warm layers and then off. Emergency supplies (cheese sandwiches and chocolate) in my rucksack; a booking at the Tower Bank Arms, the village pub depicted in The Tale Of J emima P uddle-Duck, f or s upper.

With my nose in the OS map, I climbed the farm track from the village leading up to Moss Eccles Tarn, her favourite constitutional. After 40 minutes or so, I reached an expanse of blue water, passing one woman along the r oute.

We smiled and nodded, the local etiquette. I tried to imagine Potter trudging along these steep paths, walking stick in hand. Did the ghosts of Squirrel Nutkin and B enjamin Bunny haunt her walks?

SHE certainly haunted mine. Zig-zagging across fields back to the village, I tried to imagine her youth in London. B attling against a society that offered no education to women, only marriage, she was determined to steer her own course. Instead of making s ocial c alls w ith h er m other, she would steal away to the Natural History Museum to draw its specimens.

She h oped t hat h er p lain l ooks m ight p ut off suitors. As she once confessed: ‘I’m glad I’ ve got ruddy cheeks and a big nose .’ She also once said of herself: ‘I feel like a bull in a drawing room.’

A family friend encouraged her to turn her sketchbooks into stories. When Frederick Warne published The Tale Of Peter Rabbit in 1902, it was a sensation, reprinted several times within a year. With the royal ties she earned,Potterbought Hill Top, the first of 14 farms she would acquire.

More tales followed. And, to her surprise, a late romance. Aged 39, she fell in love

with Norman Warne, the son of her p ublisher, a nd t he c ouple b ecame e ngaged. This provoked a family outcry: Warne was in trade, after all.

Her parents insisted they spend the summerapart: if their love could survive-such a separation, they could marry. Yet before the season was out, Norman was dead, succumbing to leukaemia at the age of 37. All Potter’s dreams of a life in the Lakes with him were dashed.

Eight years later she married WilliamHeelis, a solicitor from Hawkshead who had been handling her business affairs. She never had children.

Potter was happy to put writing aside and de vote herself to farming. She realised that the landscape of hill farms she cherished was under threat from developer s—it wasn’ t until 1951 that the area was d esignated a national park.

She spent her last 30 years snapping up estates as they came up for sale and installing tenants. Beatrix Potter, the world famousauthor who was to sellm or ethan 250 million books, was now content to be plain old Mrs Heelis, breeder of native Herd wick sheep. Dying in 1943, she wanted her ashes to be scattered behind Hill Top.

By fart he most famous of those bequests is the land surrounding the beauty spot of Tarn Hows, a lake that sits high above Coniston with views of the high fells.

Here, you follow the shoreline for two miles. It struck me, not for the first time, that Potter was beside me. The grande ur I

‘It really strikes me that some scenery is almost theatrical or ultra-romantic’ BEATRIX POTTER

was enjoying that wintry afternoon was exactly what made her spirits soar. The landscape is essentially unchanged. ‘It seems we have done a big thing,’ she once said of her conservation work.

I could only explore a fraction of her 4,000-acre bequest. There remained the grounds of Wray Castle, the first house her parents rented. And I had wanted to summon the ghost of Mrs Tiggywinkle on Catbells, the fell above Derwentwater. I rounded off my trip with another of her jaunts: a walk downhill from Near Sawrey to Far Sawrey to take the ferry across Windermere to Bowness. The bracken on the hills was the colour of an Orange Pippin.

Potter remained modest about her achievements, shying away from fans. In her shabby old tweeds, she was hard to recognise anyway. But one young visitor knew who she was. He was six-year-old Roald Dahl, who would become another venerated children’s author. ‘I’ve come to meet Beatrix Potter.’ he managed, quite overcome.

‘Well, you’ve seen her,’ she barked. ‘Now buzz off.’